Itinerary: A Week in: Rome – Florence – Venice – and the Tuscan Countryside

I just spent a week in Italy showing Ryan the hits (Rome – Florence – Venice), but since I studied abroad in Florence back in 2005 and had spent a lot of time in those three cities,   I added on something new and special for myself to our itinerary – a day trip around Tuscany. I was very excited to return and share my favorite spots with Ryan, and Tuscany is an area I’ve been interested in exploring more so our day trip was quite the highlight for me.

I definitely over-prepared for the weather. My memories of Florence when I arrived in January 2005 was a winter that was bitterly cold – so i brought every long john, base layer, fleece, beanie, glove and scarf I could fit into my small travel backpack. I was worried one jacket wouldn’t be warm enough so I brought a second (spoiler alert: I didn’t need two).

Although it rained for a week straight before we arrived, the weather during our entire trip turned out to be lovely – sunny with clear skies and not so cold that my base layers couldn’t handle it. So I would definitely return to Europe in February again! The other MAJOR plus of traveling in the off-season was that airfare was very low, which is why we decided to brave the cold to begin with.

 

Here’s our itinerary:

DAY 1 / Fly

DAY 2 / Rome

• Arrived to Rome in the evening. Checked into our AirBnB right off the Campo de Fiori. Wandered around the Campo de Fiori area and had dinner at a cute little restaurant named Verso Sera that we found tucked into the corner of a small piazza.

DAY 3 / Roam around Rome

• Morning: Wandered around Rome. We thought the Campo de Fiori was very well located for wandering. We found a pasticceria and grabbed some pastries, wandered though the Piazza Navona, by the Pantheon, along the river and by the Colosseum.
• Late Morning/Afternoon: Some of my favorite moments of the day were – 1) Walking up the Spanish Steps and having a beer at a little rooftop restaurant overlooking the Steps 2) Visiting the Trevi Fountain and discovering a little restaurant called Il Chianti Vineria and sitting down for an afternoon glass of wine.
• Dinner: We visited a little wine bar called L’Angolo Divino down the street from our AirBnb and found it to be very charming. We then walked over to the Trastevore area, wandered around the little streets and admired all the hip cafes and found one to duck into for dessert.
• Overnight: AirBnB

DAY 4 / On to Florence!

• Morning: We got up early and enjoyed one last roman pastry on the balcony of our AirBnb and then we threw our backpacks on our back and did a 45 minute walk to the Roma Termini train station. Instead of taking a taxi, this was a great way to see more of the city (and burn off some of the wine,  pasta and pastries we’d been enjoying!)
• Late Morning: We took the train from Roma Termini to Firenze Santa Maria Novella and walked fromm there to our AirBnB on Via dei Servi. This was the street I lived on as a study abroad student and once again, the location did not disappoint. It’s right off of the Piazza del Duomo but still a quiet, calm residential street with amenities like a little supermarket, coffee shop, restaurants, etc.
• Lunch: We dropped off our bags and beelined for a friend’s sandwich shop  recommendation – i’Girone de Ghiotti. It was just a bit hard to find (we were distracted by the line at another sandwich shop) – but we found there was no line at i’Girone — which was just our luck because the sandwiches were not only just 5 euro, they were DELICIOUS. We enjoyed the sandwiches with a tiny little glass of wine called a “gocceto”. This place was so delicious we went back 3 more times over the week.
• Late Afternoon: We walked up to the Piazzale Michelangelo, wandered along the river, visited the Piazza della Repubblica, the Ponte Vecchio and stopped for a gelato.
• Dinner: il Gatto e la Volpe – a great meal and another recommendation from a friend! We loved it, we were stuffed. Best antipasto plate of the whole trip.

DAY 5 / Continue exploring Florence

• Morning: We spent the day continuing our wandering around Florence – we happened upon the Mercato d’Sant Ambrogio area and walked right by Cibreo Restaurant where we spotted chef Fabio Picci.
• Late Morning: We walked from there to find the bakery Antico Forno Giglio – that and Cibreo were featured on the show “Somebody Feed Phil” and we were excited to see both!
• Lunch: 5euro sandwiches at i’Girone de’ Ghiotti, of course.
• Afternoon: From there, we walked along the river, over the Ponte Vecchio into the Oltarno. We bought tickets to see the Boboli Gardens. Which were nice — I don’t know that i’d recommend it though.
• Dinner: Cibreo Caffe. We were so excited to have walked by earlier in the day, we went back for dinner. This was one of our best meals – the service as well as the food was fantastic.

DAY 6 / Day Trip to Venice

• Mid-Morning: We grabbed a mid-morning train to Venice, walked around and got lost amongst the canals, had lunch at a little canal-side restaurant, marveled at the Piazza San Marco and took some photos of gondolas. We hopped back on an early evening train back to Florence.
• Evening: On our walk back to our AirBnB from the train station, we kept our eyes open for somewhere that we could enjoy dinner. While checking out La Divina Enoteca, which is on a best of Florence list, we were more intrigued by De Plek which was right next door. The atmosphere was cozy and romantic, the waiters did a great job of recommending a bottle of wine for us, and they kept refilling our bread to go with the cheese plate we ordered. We loved this place!

DAY 7 / Guided Tour of Tuscany

• Morning: This was my favorite day. We were picked up by Arianna and Alessio, owners of KMZero Tours, and we hopped in their car and headed into Tuscany for a tour that consisted of elements that we had chosen. Arianna and Alessio only do private tours – no big inpersonal group tours – and that made all the difference in creating a day that was tailored for us and felt authentic and interesting. I was very impressed by Arianna and Alessio’s ability to be warm and friendly yet always professional, to organize a tour with the network of people they grew up with that were all ready and willing to invite us into their spaces and show us warmth and hospitality, and to never rush us but still keep us on time.
• Mid-Morning: We started by visiting their friend Giorgio the wood-turner for a wood carving demonstration. During the demonstration Giorgio needed about 10 minutes for something to dry, so Arianna walked us down to her friend Beppo the Baker who had no idea we were coming but whipped up a plate of pastries that were typical during the Carnival season for us to taste and refused to let us pay for them. He then ran after us once we left with a heart shaped cookie in a little bag and exclaimed in Italian “BECAUSE I LOVE EVERYBODY!” (it was Valentine’s Day so this was not out of place at all).
• Late Morning: We then drove to Il Bacio, an organic winery, and met the owner Franco. Franco explained his organic wine-making process, showed us his wine cellar, and then invited us into his house for lunch. During lunch (which was delicious and made by his wife) we tasted his wines and had a great conversation with him and our tour guides who definitely felt more like great friends at this point. The wines were so good we purchased 6 bottles to be shipped to us in the U.S.
• After a beautiful visit to the winery we hopped back in the car for a visit to Montefioralle, a beautiful little Tuscan hilltop village that only has 73 residents and is impeccably maintained. This is a place that wouldn’t be on any tourist map – there were no stores/restaurants/bars — just people’s homes – and it was beautiful to see people continuing to inhabit these medieval cities. We then drove 2 minutes down the road to the town of Greve in Chianti where we ended the trip with a walk around the main square before hopping in the car and returning to Florence.

DAY 8 / Back to Rome

• We made one more visit to i’Girone de Ghiotti for one last sandwich and then headed to the train station. We trained from Florence back to Rome.
• One we arrived in Rome, we threw our bags on our back once again and did the 30-minute walk back to the little cafe that we found and loved near the Trevi Fountain –Il Chianti Vineria. We met up with friends there who had just arrived in Rome that day for aperol spritzes and a chat.
• We then did the same trek back to the train station and took the Leonardo Express train (30 minutes) out to the airport, caught our hotel’s shuttle from the airport to our hotel and got to sleep early because we had to get up super early for our flight home the next morning (well, flight home for me, and Ryan flew to London to continue his European journey for another week). We chose to stay at the Marriott right near the airport that night due to our early morning flights.